DISTRICT MULTI-STAKEHOLDER FORUMS: AN UNEXHAUSTED OPPORTUNITY FOR SECURING LAND RIGHTS; THE TANZANIAN EXPERIENCE (original) (raw)
Administration of land in Tanzania is more decentralized from the president to the village level. The law gives power to village councils and village assemblies to administer village land. The District authorities are given advisory and supervisory mandates over villages and represent the commissioner who takes overall administrative powers. Despite decentralization, institutions responsible for land administration, land have continued to be cause of many conflicts for years. Conflicts have been escalating and lead loss of lives and property. Lack of coordination among land administrative institutions has been the main route cause of land conflicts and ineffective systems of handling land conflicts administratively. Civil society organisations, government institutions and development partners have been working to address and enhance coordination and communication among responsible institutions responsible for tenure security. TNRF is one of the three implementing partners of the “Ardhi Yetu Project” that focuses on, among other things, strengthening platforms at the local level. The platforms aim at multi-stakeholder policy dialogue on sustainable land-based businesses and investment solutions in ways that build upon active citizen participation. Therefore this paper presents multi-stakeholders forums as best model to address institutional coordination for land tenure security.
Related papers
This paper examines land governance in the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor in Rukwa and Katavi regions in Tanzania. The four districts involved include Sumbawanga, Kalambo, Nkasi and Mpanda. Land governance and the management of related conflicts were assessed in views of the roles of local government and the challenges posed by policy and legal frameworks. Using a sample size of 270 smallholder farmers, a household survey was used to collect quantitative data, while qualitative data were collected from 74 Focus Group Discussions' participants. The results confirmed the 'legal dualism' that embraces colonial policy and laws on land issues at local level despite the land reforms that have had taken place in Tanzania. In addition, land conflict was a common phenomenon. The results also show that the efforts of local governments, and other stakeholders, to manage land conflicts were hampered by serious challenges. The challenges include incapacitation of the local government with regard to legal issues, lack of education and unawareness of the policies and legal framework on the part of the citizenry. These resulted into ineffective implementation of informal and formal arrangements governing land issues. Ineffective land governance, in turn, stem from inadequate capacity to resolve land conflicts. This justifies poor land governance. To that effect, concerted efforts are needed to correct the situation.
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.